Is this Man a Fascist?

A Decade Later, We're Still Wrestling With The Dark Knight's Murky, Challenging Politics

Ten years ago, I knew I had just seen a great movie--the superhero film I never knew I had been waiting for, the first time in a century's worth of pop fiction it seemed like these masked fools had something urgent to say.

I'm not sure I quite comprehended, though, that I was watching a movie I'd be talking about for a decade.

"The Dark Knight," the second and best of Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy, opened nationwide on July 18th, 2008. It went on to gross more than a billion dollars, becoming the 4th-highest domestic grossing movie at the time and a critical darling--so highly praised that, when it was snubbed for a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars that year, they changed the rules. 

It transformed Hollywood, spawning a generation of high-end superhero epics and setting a template for superhero mythology as battles of ideas and worldviews you can still see in recent hits like "Black Panther" and "Wonder Woman." The movie also left legacies less beneficial--ever-escalating superhero events and "universe" saturation, as well as a self-serious tone which has sunk other franchises. (The effect I hoped for most--that it would inspire studios to stop replying so much on computer-generated effects to create action and suspense--never really materialized.)

As a political allegory, though--which it undeniably is--"The Dark Knight" leaves a less clear legacy. 

Lost in the Stars

What's the longest a movie has made you angry?

We've all got movies we hate--"A Life Less Ordinary," "Lucy," "Justice League." But I'm talking about the kind of anger that makes you stew, that invades your thoughts during peaceful moments.

The best I can come up with is "Sphere," Barry Levinson's turgid and senseless adaptation of the Michael Crichton sci-fi thriller I read and endlessly re-read as a 12-year-old. Months after eagerly seeing it in the theater, it still had me fuming.

But that's nothing compared to the rage a large number of gentlemen are still nurturing online towards "The Last Jedi," the eight official Star Wars installment which was released a full seven months ago. The frothing wrath about every related to the movie--the treatment of Luke, the female military command, the hostile takeover of the franchise by the dreaded SJWs--has become such a constant presence on every social media platform, star Kelly Marie Tran had to leave Instagram due to the vitriol.